Coventry Telegraph Letters: MPs: Listen to Health Bill backlash

BOTH of the area’s Conservative MPs claim GP support for the Health Bill currently before Parliament, but the Royal College of General Practitioners published a survey of its members on January 12 showing 98 per cent of them want the Bill withdrawn.

BOTH of the area’s Conservative MPs claim GP support for the Health Bill currently before Parliament, but the Royal College of General Practitioners published a survey of its members on January 12 showing 98 per cent of them want the Bill withdrawn. With nearly 2,600 completed responses, it is a very large poll.

Nearly 60 per cent (1,559 respondents) said the reforms would not result in more cost-effective deliver of care.

Nearly 90 per cent (2,346 respondents) said that the reforms would increase the involvement of the private sector, and more than three quarters (1,971 respondents) said that the reforms would not reduce bureaucracy in the NHS.

Claims by Dan Byles and Marcus Jones of broad GP support when 98 per cent oppose them is political humbug. With the NHS struggling in the face of government cuts, it is wrong to waste millions of pounds on a reorganisation driven by Conservative ideology, when the money ought to be spent on patient care.